Kickstart: This is not a Coke Christmas ad

Could a little plastic hook and loop technology help polar bears' long-term survival?

Perhaps, if prototype trackers for the bears made using Velcro connecting systems from 3M allow researchers to better understand what the bears need.

The problem, according to Polar Bears International researchers, is that tracking collars really don't work for young bears, so they're harder to study. While electronics haven't gotten smaller, attachment systems haven't kept up.

Luckily, one of PBI's researchers, BJ Kirschhoffer, has a father who works for 3M. Jon Kirschhoffer is an advanced research specialist in the 3M Corporate Research Systems Lab.

"I asked my dad if the 3M technical community could figure out how to stick a tag on a polar bear, and they rose to the challenge," BJ Kirschhoffer said in a release from 3M. "They liked the environmental aspect of it and the chance to contribute to polar bear conservation."

The 3M team developed four prototypes, including ones that use Velcro to connect to the bears' fur. You can find more (and check out a video) here.

Admit it, the first time you heard that Jim Ratcliffe was making plans to turn Ineos into an automaker, you thought that was just a crazy scheme, right?

But now Ineos has an auto plant.

On Dec. 8, the materials giant and Daimler AG announced Ineos was buying the Smartville assembly plant in Hambach, France, where Daimler has made Smart cars for more than 20 years.

Smartville is an impressive place, a supplier park where injection molded door panels arrived seamlessly on the assembly line, as needed. Smart hasn't exactly been a hot property lately, though, so Ineos could inject some new energy at the site.

Ineos said it will begin making Grenadiers, an utility vehicle aiming to compete with Land Rovers, at the site by late 2021. Up until this point, Ineos had a prototype car, but no place to make it. Now with the Hambach deal, it has both the plant and a trained workforce.

Ineos will continue making Smart cars under contract, and the combined mini cars and utility trucks may make for some interesting production lines in the next few years.

We've all had that moment when we realize our phone battery is low when we're out and about. Wouldn't a friendly, mobile, autonomous charging station be handy?

The MobiPower is still a concept at this point, but the rolling charging station — made using a range of BASF plastic materials — could be just the help you need sometime in the future.

"Over 75 billion connected devices, such as phones and electric vehicles, will need charging by 2025. MobiPower enables us to meet this market demand, with a convenient charging solution that is robust enough to house sophisticated components and sensors ... as well as durable enough for the outdoors," Hisashi Taniguchi, CEO of developer ZMP Inc., said in a news release from BASF.